Tuesday 13 January 2009

TODAY ONE WHOLE YEAR A BLOGGER

This is post 125 and 3535 visitors on my counter. Cant believe where the time has gone and what I would have done with my time when sitting here in my lovely comfy study bashing away on the keyboard to communicate with the best bunch of art pals worldwide. I have so appreciated your support, advice and friendship you have all brought to me.

ARTICHOKES WATERCOLOUR PENCIL PRACTICE
In my little study showing my very useful two height drawing desk.
Today I'm going to post a series of watercolour pencil stages of a group of artichokes, as I agreed at the last workshop that watercolour pencils was going to be the new media for our February workshop. .. so I thought I ought to remind myself of their versatility. I spied some dried artichokes growing in one of the allotments and had permission to cut them down for sketching.

Dry pencil work and some mixed dry and wet techniques
I hope my sketches show a) how to pencil sketch lightly a simple composition giving various angles of the flowerhead, b) how to add dry watercolour pencil marks, c) add water with a brush to some areas leaving others dry and finally d) how to use strong linear marks created by wetting the tip of the pencil.
Thought I'd leave it at this to show the group the various stages.

12 comments:

Anita said...

Congratulaltions!!!
This is gorgeous - the middle photo/closeup seems to be coming right out of the monitor at me. Great demonstration - Thank you!

RH Carpenter said...

Happy Blogger Anniversary, Joan. The painting is lovely :) Looking forward to more of these demos.

Robyn Sinclair said...

Happy Blog Birthday, Joan! And you have marked it with yet more of your beautiful botanical art which you know I adore.

I'd love to be part of this artichokes class. Lucky students!

Margaret Ann said...

Awesome illustrations Joanie...I wish I could sit at your side and watch you as you progress...thanks for allowing us all a peek at the next best thing...These are truly beautiful ...shape, composition, color...What a lucky students you will have!

Happiest of Blog Birthday wishes to you!!! A big WooHoo all the way from Arizona!

Sandy Maudlin said...

The artichokes are really looking good. I may have to copy your idea and try my hand at them too. I like the stage by stage photos to show how you developed it, too. THANKS. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, blogger friend.

Joan Sandford-Cook said...

Oh you gorgeous people. See what I mean when I said how much your friendship has meant to me as it built up over the year. Love you all.

lyn said...

Lovely, and happy blog birthday!

Anita Davies said...

HAPPY BLOG BIRTHDAY! A year already....WOW!

The demo looks fab!

Claudia said...

Great! Very three-dimensional!-And your zentangles are beautiful, too!
-I'm so sorry you had trouble commenting on my blog...

Robert A Vollrath said...

I hope I have many more years of reading my favorite blog.

"JeanneG" said...

Happy Blog Birthday. My 3rd year will be coming in June. I love the artichoke works. Very pretty.

I have a neighbor who has a plant that when it blooms, these long, firm poles come out of the plant and on the top they have these beautiful blooms that look just like an artichoke. The neighbor is hispanic and called them something like artichoka in Spanish.

I tried a drawing and it was horrible. So artichokes and pine cones are something I need to work at.

Anonymous said...

Ooh I love that. Beautiful detail.